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Welcome! I'm sorry Maggie has SM. One of mine (Riley) has SM but she has only been on prednisone, never on Lyrica so I won't be much help. There are others on the board though who have dogs who are on Lyrica and hopefully they will let you know their experiences. I just wanted to let you know that we understand how horrible SM is and we help and support each other when our dogs are going through hard times, or when we don't know if a new behavior might be related to SM, or whether to increase medication. I have found this a safe place to ask questions and to vent my frustrations with the disease. I hope you will have a similar experience. Please tell us more about Maggie!

Thank you so much! I write this post for my friend that have a sweet cavalier king (Ally) with SM. We're Italian and my friend doesn't speak english. She wanted to know the experiences with the use of Lyrica for combat this terrible disease.
I'm so sorry for your Riley and I'm pleased to be part of this forum!
Thank you and all the best from Italy

My Toby has been on Gabapentin and Lyrica - for us, Gabapentin did not last long enough and he had breakthrough pain and yelping episodes. But since starting Lyrica, he has been doing so well!! Like a whole new dog, even playing with toys when he had not before.

But every dog is different, and so is the treatment and what works for them. Does your friend have a neurologist for their dog?

Normally treatment would start with other medications -- gabapentin is much cheaper and often works well. Lyrica is a newer form of gabapentin and can be very useful when gabapentin no longer works (these drugs do start to lose efficiency after a while and the disease usually progresses so the treatment approach has to change).

I used gabapentin with cimetidine for many many years with my Leo. A few months ago I switched him to Lyrica because he was taking as much gabapentin as he could and having discomfort again. Lyrica really helped -- he is doing much better and only needs to take it 2 times a day rather than three with gabapentin.

If your friend's cavalier has not had any treatment at all so far then she should work with a vet or better, a neurologist and follow Dr Rusbridge's treatment approach. If the dog has a lot of symptoms then she will probably want to start on gabapentin as well as cimetidine and maybe one of the painkillers. She will likely need to trial some different doses of gabapentin -- Dr Rusbridge has dogs start at 50mg 2 times a day but this usually is too low. I think most dogs find they need 100mg 2 or 3 times a day to start.